Florence County man returns home after spending nearly 300 days in hospital with COVID-19

FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - A Pamplico man is now heading home after spending nearly a year in the hospital with COVID-19.

Family, friends and medical staff rolled out the red carpet for 58-year-old Dan Thompkins as he was allowed to go home Friday at Encompass Health in Florence.

Thompkins was rolled out to the Queen song “I Want To Break Free,” as family and friends gave him a round of applause, some even approaching him for hugs.

His red carpet treatment continued when he was loaded into a large white limousine, all while wearing a blue T-shirt saying “I Survived The Rona.”

The momentous occasion came 297 days after he was first hospitalized with the coronavirus on Aug. 11, 2020, according to his nephew, Randall Jones.

Dan’s wife, Carolyn, added that he was first diagnosed with COVID-19 three days earlier.

She also called her husband coming home nothing short of a miracle.

“He was diagnosed with three lung diseases and went on the vent two weeks after being hospitalized,” she said. “[Dan] stayed on the ventilator for eight months.”

Encompass was also the fifth medical facility Dan was taken to after first being hospitalized, his family said.

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